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FRIDAY, MARCH 14, 2014
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Council removes traffic calming programs from B&O project list BY STEVE HUNTER shunter@kentreporter.com
Kent business owners won out over residents during the City Council’s decision about how to spend business and occupation (B&O) tax revenue this year on street repairs. The council at a March 4 workshop cut $500,000 for three neighborhood traffic calming programs (installing traffic circles to slow vehicles) from the $4.7
million budget. That decision angered Scott Bugbee, one of the Panther Lake residents who has worked to get city officials to slow traffic along Southeast 223rd Drive. Residents along the street started to contact the city about the speeding problem shortly after Kent annexed Panther Lake in 2010. The movement for action intensified after a speeding drunk driver hit and killed motorcyclist David Daniel
in 2012 along the street. “I am very upset by this,” Bugbee said in an email. “It may be sufficient cause for me to actually support and organize support for different candidates. They had better have a good explanation.” Council members dropped the neighborhood projects after objections from business leaders. Andrea Keikkala, chief executive officer of the Kent Chamber of Commerce, wrote a column
in the Feb. 28 Kent Reporter and sent a letter to the council that the funds should be spent on street repairs and not neighborhood street projects because city officials before they enacted the tax in January 2013 told the chamber the money would be used for emergency street repairs. “(The decision was) in keeping with the spirit of the conversation with the business community regarding the B&O that these
projects reflect maintenance and overlay, so the items removed were the neighborhood traffic calming program to the tune of about $500,000,” Council President Dana Ralph said at the workshop. “(Councilman Dennis) Higgins pointed out that it is incumbent on this council to find money (in the future) to fund those programs and I definitely agree with that.” [ more B&O page 4 ]
Phillip on retrial for Frankel killing Phillip wanted her back. Frankel, 41, worked as a video program coordinator The question of whether for the city of Kent. He was Williams L. Phillip Jr. or a divorced father of two someone else killed city of young girls. Kent employee Seth Frankel “The evidence will in 2010 at his Auburn home demonstrate beyond a dominated the opening reasonable doubt that the statements Monperson who did day at the retrial of this is William Phillip just as it did Phillip Jr.,” said last year at his initial Hinds, who listed trial. Phillips’ cellphone King County records, his DNA Superior Court on a towel found jurors in Decemat Frankel’s home, ber were unable to a hand injury and reach an unanimous Phillip writings of hatred verdict after a sixabout Frankel as week trial, so Judge Andrea evidence. Darvas declared a mistrial “(Police) found what in the first-degree murder Mr. Phillip wrote as they case against Phillip, 33. searched his apartment,” Darvas told the new jury Hinds said. “They found a the retrial is expected to last number of pads that were until April 18. essentially poetry and King County Deputy journals or other writing Prosecutor Patrick Hinds that indicated that he had told the jury Monday both a romantic obsession at the Maleng Regional with Bonny as well as perJustice Center in Kent that sonal animosity and dislike, Phillip drove from Oregon hatred for Seth based upon to Auburn to stab Franthe relationship the two of kel to death in his home them had.” because both were in love [ more PHILLIP page 8 ] with Bonny Johnson and BY STEVE HUNTER
shunter@kentreporter.com
A MOMENT OF REST Jesse Wise, with the Kent Fire Department, looks into his mask after completing the Scott Firefighter Stairclimb at Seattle’s Columbia Center last Sunday. The climb is an annual event that
brings firefighters together from across the country to compete and raise money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. Story, more photos, page 2. ROSS COYLE, Kent Reporter
Mill Creek’s creative alternatives to IEP programs BY ROSS COYLE rcoyle@kentreporter.com
How do you tell a middle school student who struggles with equations and is well behind academic standards that he has to give up his favorite course to take another math class? That’s the question educators
like Cynthia Higgins are trying to answer. The Mill Creek Middle School instructional coach works with teachers to find ways to solve problems with student achievement. One such challenge is working with the changes to federally-mandated indi-
vidual educational programs (IEP), better known as special education. The federal government has been moving students away from IEP programs, realizing students weren’t catching up and discovering those classes were taking away from [ more IEP page 4 ]
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